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September 2003 Linux Journal

The September issue of Linux
Journal is on newsstands now.
This issue focuses on Community Networks. Click
here
to view the table of contents, or
here
to subscribe.

Legislation and More Legislation

European Software Patents

On the 1st of September 2003, the European Parliament will hold a vote
which may have very far reaching and long lasting effects on the software
industry and community within the European Union. The central issue being
addressed in this vote is the patentability of software. In the past,
there has been some vagueness in the attitude of
the European Patent
Office towards the patenting of software. Although official
regulations appeared to make software, mathematics, algorithms and business
methods
essentially unpatentable, working practise in the EPO has been to
bypass the legal framework intended to constrain it and to allow such
innovations to be patented. The new directive on
the patentability of computer-implemented inventions is supposed to be
a measure aimed at resolving this confusion by regularising the rules
regarding patentability. However, what the EU blurb glosses over is that
the provisions in the new directive significantly alter the legislation
currently governing software patentability. Rather than vindicating the
existing legal situation, the legislation is being recast in the image of
the current operations of the EPO. This is strikingly borne out by some
research performed by the FFII. The FFII
intended to
show that the infamous "one click" Amazon.com patent would be
acceptable under the proposed new regulations. During the course of these
investigations, it emerged that Amazon.com had already
been granted a closely related patent covering computerised methods of
gift delivery.

Of course, when considering these changes we must ask ourselves whether
perhaps these changes may be desirable. Though there are naturally those
who support the initiative, there is a very broad constituency that
strongly opposes this move towards European software patents. An
unscientific measure of the opposition to the software patent proposals can
be obtained by doing a
search on Google News for the terms "european software patents". The
vast majority of headlines are hostile or gloomy regarding the proposal.
There is a striking absence of outright support, all the more striking
given that this is a search of news outlets rather than personal or
lobby-group websites. This scepticism is
shared by many economists who fear that the legal changes will lead to
a reduction in innovation and cutbacks in R&D expenditure. These fears
are felt very acutely among small and medium size software companies who
have perhaps the most to lose. Equally, open source developers may be left
in a vulnerable position by these proposed changes. As has been seen
in the operation of software patents in the United States, the patent
system tends to work best for parties with large financial resources, such
as multinational corporations. Such deep pockets allow an organisation to
acquire a stock of patents, and then to defend the patents through the
courts. A well resourced holder of even a very spurious patent can thus
intimidate would-be competitors out of the market simply by virtue of the
differences in scale. The only group which will benefit to a greater
degree than large corporations is the legal fraternity.

It remains to be seen whether the protests and lobbying organised by
anti-patent groups will prove to be effective. Though actions such as
closing down websites make an impact online, the real world effect can
be quite small. As was pointed out
by the Register, even though open source produces great code, it does
not necessarily produce great lobbying. The key for open-source groups
elsewhere and in the future is to share information about what works and
does not work in the political sphere, and to apply this information in
future struggles.

SCO

Writing an article on the SCO lawsuit(s) is getting steadily more difficult
as the volume of material on the subject mounts up. Much of it is simply
noise and it will not be until the case is dropped or reaches court that we
will have a chance to properly judge the true nature of SCO's plans. This
is especially true given SCO's reluctance to release any of the source code
they claim is infringing their "intellectual" property (the words "SCO" and
"intellectual" seem more mutually exclusive to me each day). Perhaps to
impress investors, SCO did deign to
display a couple of samples at their annual reseller show. This was
very nice of them and illustrates why they should perhaps release more of
the "disputed" code. Analysis done
by Linux Weekly News
and
by Bruce Perens
indicated that the origination of the code was entirely legal and did not
infringe on SCO's property.
SCO spokesman Blake Stowell's
rather pointless response
was to show a typically SCO-like disdain for facts and to assert that "at
this point it's going to be his [Perens'] word against ours".
Unfortunately for Blake, Perens' word is backed up by verifiable
documentation and historical record not to mention the fact that people who
worked on and remember the code are
still alive. Meanwhile, SCO's assertions are, at least
at this stage, no more than random bleatings.

Reaction to the SCO case has been mostly muted, though it is likely that
some more-cautious corporate types are somewhat reluctant to engage further
with Open Source and Free Software under the shadow of the court case. Few
though are likely to be so nervous as to stump up the licence fees
requested by SCO. The advice
of Australian lawyer John Collins sounds about right:

"If you don't know whether or not you have a valid license because
there is uncertainty as to the providence of the software and who
actually owns the copyright, then to walk up and drop your pants to the
person who is likely to sue you sounds a little counter-intuitive and a
bit uncommercial,"

Some have speculated that the true purpose of SCO's actions may be
connected to the (mostly positive) effect on its share price these
developments have had. An example of these arguments can be found in the
writings of Tim Rushing, though ultimately everybody is still
speculating. Further analyses can be found
at GrokLaw
and
at sco.iwethey.org, though keeping up with the twists and turns, not to
mention the irrational behaviour of SCO execs, is rather taxing on the grey
matter.

News in General

GNU Server breach

It emerged over the past month that the main file servers of the
GNU project were compromised by a
malicious cracker in mid-march. Although the breach was only noticed in
July, it appears that no source code was tampered with. Nonetheless, it is
important that individuals and organisation who may have downloaded from
the compromised server verify for themselves that the code they received
was intact and untainted. This incident should also bring home to users
the importance of keeping up to date with patches and software updates, and
also the necessity to have established security procedures and backups in
place.

SuSE

SGI
and
SuSE Linux
today announced plans to extend the Linux OS to new levels of scalability
and performance by offering a fully supported 64-processor system running a
fully supported, enterprise-grade Linux operating system. Expected to be
available in October, SGI will bundle SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 on SGI
Altix 3000 servers and superclusters.

Siemens Business Servicess
has decided to use SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 to underpin its mySAP HR
management system, processing payrolls for more than 170,000 employees
worldwide. The open source operating system and the platform independence
of the SAP R/3 software enable an easy migration to an open, powerful, and
efficient Intel architecture. Linux-based application servers can be
operated independently alongside existing Unix-based servers. Thus, the RM
systems can continue to run until they were amortized and gradually
replaced by Linux servers.

Software and Product News

Biscom Announces Linux FAXCOM Server

Biscom,
a provider of enterprise fax management solutions, has announced the market
release of its Linux FAXCOM Server. The new product integrates the
reliability and efficiency of the Windows FAXCOM Server with the stability
and security of the Linux operating system. Linux FAXCOM Server has been
thoroughly tested is currently available for market release. Linux FAXCOM
Server features support for multiple diverse document attachments via
on-the-fly document conversion, and up to 96 ports on one fax server.
Expanded fax routing destination options for inbound faxes include: fax
port, dialed digits, sender's Transmitting Station Identifier (TSID) and
Caller ID. Furthermore, if appropriate, the same fax may be routed to
multiple destinations, including one or more printers.

GNU Scientific Library 1.4 released

The GNU Scientific Library (GSL) is a collection of routines for
numerical computing in C. This release is backwards compatible with
previous 1.x releases. GSL now includes support for cumulative
distribution functions (CDFs) contributed by Jason H. Stover. The
full NEWS file entry is appended below.

Mod_python 3.1.0 Alpha

The Apache Software Foundation and The Apache HTTP Server Project
have announced the 3.1.0 ALPHA release of
mod_python.

Samba

Born some time ago in Ireland, Michael is currently working on
a PhD thesis in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University
College Dublin. The topic of this work is the use of Lamb waves in
nondestructive testing. GNU/Linux has been very useful in this work, and
Michael has a strong interest in applying free software solutions to
other problems in engineering. When his thesis is completed, Michael
plans to take a long walk.